The Esquire has changed, but for better or worse?

Friday night, I was smoking a Marlboro Light on Commerce Street outside The Esquire Tavern when a rather loquacious lad in baggy pants and a baseball cap exited the establishment, made eye contact and said, “(expletive verb that rhymes with ‘Chuck’) that (expletive noun that rhymes with ‘Schmidt’).”

We’ve been through this before  with Club Cohiba and, to an extent, Tucker’s Kozy Korner. When our favorite watering holes come under new ownership, we’re not always pleased with the results.

I have to say  a few qualms and one major one aside  I give the new Esquire a thumbs up. And on opening night, most of the people I polled  and I asked a lot of people  agreed. The lad with the baseball cap was in the minority. But the real barometer of whether they got it right would be a friend  we’ll call her Lil Dipper  an Esquire regular from back in the day, and who does not hesitate with harsh analysis, and whose Esquire PhD was earned the night she was kicked out of the place years ago. (For tangential reasons, I won’t go into why). On opening night, as she nestled a Lone Star bottle into a red Kruez Market koozie, she said there were some kinks to be expected, she thought the new Esquire was alright, she would be back, but don’t call it The Esquire. It’s too different, she said.

I would first compare the new Esquire to a really good movie remake like “Scarface” or “Rat Race” (shut up). All of the things that defined The Esquire are still there  the long bar, the throne-like wooden booths, followed by the cushy ones. That gorgeous back bar actually looks enhanced with the vast liquor selection. Some of what they did was restoration like the tile floors. It’s definitely cleaner. You can’t help but think this is kind of what it looked like when it opened in the ’30s. One of the most noticeable additions is an enormous buffalo head hanging in the back, which Lil Dipper didn’t much care for. I didn’t care for the taxidermy, either, which included a gobbler standing upright in the opposite corner. We were sitting in a booth where the women’s restrooms used to be and she felt the buffalo ogling her. There also was a family there, and a little girl wanted to touch the buffalo something fierce. So the taxidermy buffalo head ended up being a very polarizing wall ornament. The wallpaper is a replica, but the maroon finish, Lil Dipper said, was actually the stain of years of cigarette smoke, that the original color is silver. The same wallpaper decorates the bar at M.K. Davis, which was news to me.

They uncluttered the back of the house to make room for these beautiful booths along the walls, and tables in the center. The bar extension protrudes into the back, too. It seats about eight. One cool attention to detail is that you can sit at the bar extension, in these old school-Vegas-style seats, while the original bar was left as a standing bar.

The patio and River Walk entrance have been restored. Three old-timers were out there with beer in hand, leaning against the rail, overlooking the River Walk and over to St. Mary’s Street with little smiles on their faces. And that lone table in the one corner is still the best seat on the patio.

One of Lil Dipper’s biggest complaints: it needs a jukebox. It used to be between the two sets of booths, an area now reserved for serving equipment. Yes, there are waiters and servers. And the bartenders  all guys on Friday night  are nothing like the old ones. They are fit young men in dark dapper clothing. And they all wear suspenders. Some wear hats. They look like the cast of “Chicago.”

Here’s my beef: the beer’s not cheap. In fact, on first purchase it makes handing the bartender cash or credit card arduous. The cheapest thing is $3 Lone Star or Bud Light bottles. I understand they want to keep the riffraff out, but I still don’t understand why. And there’s keeping the riffraff out and then there’s committing a Class B misdemeanor  $4.50 for a Miller Lite bottle is ridiculous. You can just hear the management say, “Well, at least we’re not charging you $5.” Thanks for saving me 50 cents, how good of you, thanks. On the menu, drinks are broken down via epithetic indicators  e.g. “Big Bold & Handsome” stands for stouts, porters and ales. The banal bottled beer is listed under “Creature of Habit (aka-non adventurous).” What it’s trying to say is, “Creature of Habit (aka-buy a $10 cocktail, cheap ass).” It should have said, “Creature of Habit (aka-you make a sound and I’ll pull the trigger).” So, I’m sticking with Lone Star, which on opening night, was exhausted at about 7:30 p.m. I’m thinking they’ll keep that well stocked from now on.

Aside from the watered-down stuff  which is my comfort zone  the selection is excellent. They have two of the homegrown Ranger Creek (Oatmeal Pale Ale, La Bestia) on draft, as well as a couple of Live Oaks, Real Ales, and something called Jester King, which I have not tried, yet. The bottled beer selection is good-sized. Some of the more exotic brews are the Breckenridge Vanilla, Dogfish 90 Minute IPA and Schnieder Hopenweisen.

I start with the beer because that’s what I drink, but the cocktails are the real stars of the menu. They are developed by Jeret Pena, a friend of mine who happens to be one of downtown’s best bartenders. (Perhaps one of the city’s best bartenders, but I haven’t been out of the DT in a while, so I couldn’t say for sure.) Pena single-handedly infused life into Le Midi, the French restaurant on Houston Street, which had been on the ropes until he showed up. Sadly, it’s back on the ropes now that Pena is operating the bar at The Esquire. He’s got those classic cocktails  like the French 75, Southside and Collins  down pat. And I tasted the margarita, which was excellent, but it came in this dainty glass  like a 3-ouncer  something for an aperitif or a cordial, perhaps. A friend asked one of the bartenders why so small, and he said something like “this is the concept we’re going for.” As long as your concept is to get me drunk, then we’re good. And the margarita was heavy-handed, so that was fine. Cocktails range $6-$10, and that actually made sense. You’re going to pay that much pretty much anywhere.

The food was surprisingly pretty (expletive-in’) good. I sampled off friends plates the deviled eggs ($5), fried pickles ($5), tacos con papas ($6), pulled pork from the sandwich and the chili salt fries ($5). All excellent. Those tacos are the Schmidt. They come with coleslaw and pickled onions and a verde sauce. They’re a little small  three to a plate which you can finish in six bites  so it’s more like the delivery of flavor bursts rather than a meal. Even the White Cheddar Sirloin Burger ($9) is small. It’s like the food and drinks are prepared from a children’s kitchen set. But I digress. I did not have the burger, but a friend who did said, “If I was a dude, I would ask out the girl who made that burger.”

If you haven’t been since it reopened, don’t go expecting the tamal lady to walk through that door. Same for the JELL-O shots; they’re not on the menu. It’s definitely not the same place compared to when it closed. And for a bar that’s been open since Prohibition was repealed, I’m sure it’s gone through many phases. I’ll give the new Esquire the benefit of the doubt on that one. Although, I’m not sure charging in the $5 range for most bottled beer is living up to the Esquire legacy.

The bottom line is what the latest Esquire incarnation can do, its potential. For one, it’s a major piece to making downtown a classic cocktail destination. It has created bar hopping when factoring in SoHo and Bohanan’s bar. And what better place for those nostalgic drinks than downtown? It’s also gives Commerce Street a little boost. I can just see those concerts at Main Plaza feeding off The Esquire, and vice versa. For me, the bottom line is this: on Friday night, on opening night, I saw probably a dozen friends I hadn’t seen in months. We caught up and got drunk just like old times. If The Esquire can accomplish that, be that gathering place for old friends and new, then we will regard this new version as another chapter in the Esquire’s storied history, and not just a really good remake.